Part 33
Publicity regarding the book should be arranged, book reviews secured, if possible. Religious leaders should be sent copies, even the highest Ecclesiastical leaders. Many copies should be mailed to the important leaders of the Church of England, and other religious denominations of the British Isles.
This book very finely presents the relationship between Christ and Baha'u'llah, and outlines the manner in which the Baha'i Faith is setting up the Kingdom of God, which the Christians are praying for.
The Guardian feels that very beneficial results will be achieved by this active public programme, with this book, "Christ and Baha'u'llah" even if it stirs up opposition and criticism for the time being.
He will pray for your Assembly, and for the success of your many labours in the Cause of God....
Letter of 30 April 1957
30 April 1957
DEEPLY APPRECIATE CONVENTION MESSAGE REJOICE RECENT VICTORIES GREATLY VALUE SPIRIT ANIMATING ENTIRE BRITISH BAHA'I COMMUNITY CHERISH BRIGHTEST HOPES FERVENTLY SUPPLICATING RAPID CONSOLIDATION HOME FRONT ESSENTIAL PRELUDE UNPRECEDENTED EXPANSION GLORIOUS MISSION BRITISH FOLLOWERS FAITH BAHA'U'LLAH FOREIGN FIELDS DEEPEST LOVE.
SHOGHI
Letter of 27 May 1957
27 May 1957
Dear Baha'i Brother:
The beloved Guardian has instructed me to write about the ... situation raised in one of your recent letters....
It is inconceivable and wholly inadmissible that any Baha'is in a community should be permitted to hold a Feast in their home and refuse admission to another believer; and your Assembly should write accordingly in very strong terms to the ... Assembly, pointing out that the Guardian is not only surprised to learn of this situation, but disapproves of it in the strongest terms.
Any Baha'i may attend a Feast, a local Baha'i, a Baha'i from out of town, certainly an isolated Baha'i from the neighbourhood.
It is the duty of the ... Assembly to take strong measures to remedy this situation, and to ensure that the Feasts are held in a place and in a manner that conforms to the Baha'i spirit....
Letter of 7 June 1957 (Shetland Summer School)
7 June 1957 (Shetland Summer School)
SUPPLICATING ABUNDANT BLESSINGS DEEPEST LOVE.
SHOGHI
Letter of 14 August 1957
14 August 1957
DELIGHTED HISTORIC GATHERING ASSURE FERVENT PRAYERS UNPRECEDENTED EXPANSION ACTIVITIES.
SHOGHI
Letter of 30 August 1957
30 August 1957
Dear Baha'i Brother:
Your communications with their enclosures and material sent under separate cover have all arrived safely, and the beloved Guardian has instructed me to answer you on his behalf and to acknowledge receipt of your letters dated: July 24, 27 and 31, August 24, 27, and 30, September 7, 26, 27, and 28, October 5, 13 (signed by all members), and 15, November 5 (signed by Dorothy Ferraby), and 28 (three), and December 14, 18, 27, and 28, 1956, and January 8, 16, 20 (one undated), and 22nd, February 4, 6, 8, 11, 19, 21, 23, and 27, March 7, 8, 13, and 18 (two), May 6, 9, 21, (two), June 3, 11, 14, 19 and 25, July 12, 16, (two), 19, 21, 26, and August 2, and 5 signed by Ernest Gregory.
As a number of questions raised in your letters have been answered by cable or through the National Assembly Secretary, I will not go into those again here.
He was interested to see the Tablets which Dr. Moayad located in Cambridge, and appreciated having copies of them.
It has been a great pleasure to have had so many members of the British Baha'i community here last winter and spring as pilgrims.
He is immensely proud of the work which has been accomplished during the last year, of the remarkable spirit of dedication which animates the entire community, and which invariably produces, at an hour of crisis, a strong and healthy reaction on the part of the community to rush reinforcements to its weak Assemblies, when they are in danger of dissolution.
He realises that the enforcement of the general rule that an Assembly must function within civic limits has caused considerable havoc in Britain, as well as other countries. However, it enables the friends, through splitting up into smaller communities, to have before their eyes the appetising prospect of forming yet another Spiritual Assembly, all on their own, so to speak. It gives more believers the opportunity to serve on these Administrative Bodies, challenges the teaching activities of them all, and stimulates them to fresh efforts in the hope of early victory.
The news of the success of your Convention this year; the fact that the community was able to manoeuvre its finances into a position of equilibrium, a position, incidentally, which it should make every effort to maintain; the large number of friends who attended the beautiful memorial meeting held for the dear Hand of the Cause, George Townshend, also pleased and encouraged our beloved Guardian.
He was pleased to hear from Rhodesia of the incorporation of the Salisbury Assembly, which seems to be in the nature of a foundation for the future incorporation of all Spiritual Assemblies throughout the Rhodesias. This is yet another valuable service which your Assembly has been instrumental in rendering the Faith in Africa.
He thanks your Assembly for the coloured photographs of the Haziratu'l-Quds and also for the film of the Summer School which you sent him. He was very pleased also to receive copies of the Irish pamphlets, and hopes the Gaelic translation will soon be out.
As regards your question about printing in books the approval of the National Assembly, he thinks that, if in certain circumstances this seems inadvisable, there is no objection to omitting it. The approval of the National Body should be sought for all Baha'i publications, so as to protect the Faith from unofficially disseminating information which may in some respects be false or inaccurate. Once this has been done, it is not so essential for the fact to appear in the book, if it will mitigate the effects of the book and decrease its sales....
The death of the Hand of the Cause, George Townshend, is a great loss to the British community as it not only deprives them of their most distinguished member, their unique Hand, but also of a most inspiring and faithful co-worker and a distinguished Baha'i author. His latest book has been read with great interest by the Guardian, and he hopes your Assembly is ensuring its wide distribution to various religious leaders in Britain. If opposition to the Faith can be aroused through this book, it will be the greatest service that dear George Townshend has ever rendered. It was always his hope that, through his pen, sparks would fly and begin the conflagration in whose light the Faith would shine forth in all its splendour. Let us hope that this last service of his will indeed prove to be the vital spark setting off this process of opposition which will inevitably lead to a wide recognition and acceptance of the Faith.
The Guardian hopes that during the present year the home Assemblies will not only be maintained and groups prepared for assembly status next Ridvan, but that it will be possible to reinforce the work in the islands off the shores of the British Isles. The sooner a nucleus of local people is established in these goal places the sooner will the pioneers be able to move on to new fields and to lend their assistance to the teaching work either on the Home Front or in the Pacific area.
Please assure the dear pioneers that he greatly admires their steadfastness of purpose, their self-sacrifice and their exemplary spirit, and that he particularly prays for them in the Holy Shrines.
As regards the future work in the Pacific: It is entirely premature at this time for your Assembly to think about the work there. The Home Front and the work in the neighbouring islands around Great Britain, as well as those allotted under the Ten Year Plan to your Assembly in the Mediterranean, must receive the concentrated attention of your Body, its Committees and the believers. When the time comes to become active in the Pacific area, you may be sure he will let you know!
He feels that the urgent need now is to get out "Some Answered Questions", which is one of the most important books for a proper study of the Faith. When this has been printed, the next publication of the Master's Works can be considered....
As to your question about the words used in the marriage ceremony; the two versions mean practically the same thing, and either may be used.(90)
It is most regrettable that the Caravan should have gotten hold of ...; if this situation is stirred up too much it will only enable Ahmad Sohrab to make a big fuss and get more publicity. In view of this the Guardian feels your Assembly should be watchful and seek out, if possible, a suitable person and a suitable opportunity to call to her attention the facts that the Baha'i Faith, so widely spread and acknowledged, has nothing to do with the Caravan which is a purely opportunist organisation and so loosely knit together as to have almost no power of influencing people one way or another. To do the wrong thing in a situation such as this would be worse than to do nothing.
He assures you one and all of his loving prayers for your success in all you do for the Faith.
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers,
The year that has just elapsed, following upon the swift and spectacular success achieved by the firmly grounded, the progressive and alert British Baha'i community in the heart of the African Continent--a success attested by the triumphant emergence of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Central and East Africa--has witnessed a progress throughout the length and breadth of the Homefront, as well as in the northern islands in the neighbourhood of the British Isles, which, though not spectacular, nevertheless testifies to the earnestness, the devotion and the exemplary tenacity with which the members of this community are conducting, in all its aspects, the noble Mission entrusted to their care, and are grappling with the manifold problems involved in its prosecution.
This present and crucial year must be signalised in the annals of British Baha'i history by a substantial measure of internal administrative consolidation and a noticeable expansion in the all-important teaching field, which will enable the members of this community, now standing on the threshold of a new and brilliant phase in the unfoldment of their Mission in foreign fields, to reinforce and broaden the base of their future operations beyond the confines of their native land.
The splendid work achieved, in such a short space of time, in a field so distant, and amongst a race so alien in its background, outlook and customs, must, if the significance of that Mission is to be properly assessed, be regarded as only a prelude to the series of future campaigns which the privileged members of the British Baha'i community, residing and firmly rooted in the heart of a far-flung Commonwealth and Empire, will, if faithful to such a Mission, launch, in the years ahead, in the islands of the North Sea and of the Mediterranean, as well as in the remote territories situated in the Pacific area--campaigns which, in their range and significance, must throw into shade the feats performed in the African Continent.
To be enabled to rise to this occasion, to ensure the energetic, the systematic and uninterrupted conduct of so vast and diversified an enterprise, amidst peoples and races fully as promising, and even more remotedly situated, and presenting them with a challenge more severe than any which has faced them in the past, the small band of the ardent, the high minded, the resolute followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, charged by Destiny and by virtue of the enviable position they occupy, with so glorious a responsibility for the future awakening of the great masses, living under the shadow of, or whose governments are directly associated with, the British Crown, must needs in the years immediately ahead, acquire greater coherence, increase more rapidly in numbers, definitely emerge from obscurity, plumb greater depths of consecration, enrich its store of administrative experience, become definitely self-supporting, and associate itself more closely, through the body of its elected representatives and its future Hands, with the National and Regional Spiritual Assemblies on the European mainland and in all the other continents of the globe, and particularly with the Hands already appointed in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
The sooner these prime requisites, so essential for a further unfoldment of the mighty potentialities inherent in so splendid a Mission, are fulfilled, the sooner will the call be raised for the opening of a new chapter in the history of British Baha'i achievements overseas.
The rapid multiplication of isolated centres, groups and local assemblies, particularly in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Eire; the incorporation of firmly grounded local spiritual assemblies; a greater measure of publicity; a wider dissemination of Baha'i literature; a quick and substantial rehabilitation of the vitally important national Fund; a firmer grasp of the essential verities of the Faith; a more profound study of its history and a deeper understanding of the genesis, the significance, the workings, and the present status and achievements of its embryonic World Order and of the Covenant to which it owes its birth and vitality--these remain the rock-bottom requirements which alone can guarantee the opening and hasten the advent, of that blissful era which every British Baha'i heart so eagerly anticipates, and the glories of which can, at present, be but dimly discerned.
Now, of a certainty, is not the time for the members of this gallant band, so thinly spread over the length and breadth of its island home, and reaching out, so laboriously yet so determinedly to the inhospitable islands fringing its northern and western coasts, to dwell, however tentatively, on the nature of the tantalising task awaiting them in the not distant future, or to seek to probe into its mysterious, divinely guided operation. Theirs is the duty to plod on, however tedious the nature of the work demanding their immediate attention, however formidable the obstacles involved in its proper execution, however prolonged the effort which its success necessitates, until the signs of its ultimate consummation, heralding the launching of what is sure to be the most spectacular phase of their Mission, are clearly discerned.
A responsibility, at once colossal, sacred and highly challenging, faces not only the body of the elected representatives of this community, but each and every one of its members. As the world spiritual Crusade, to the successful prosecution of which the British followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah have, singly and collectively, so markedly contributed, approaches its mid-point, the evidences of this indispensable quickening of the tempo of Baha'i activity all over the British Isles and the islands situated in their neighbourhood and far beyond their confines, must become more manifest and rapidly multiply. The admiration and esteem in which a community, relatively small in numbers, strictly limited in resources, yet capable of such solid and enduring achievements, is held by its sister and daughter communities in every continent of the globe, far from declining must be further enhanced. The historic process originated as far back as the year which witnessed the formulation of the Six Year Plan on the occasion of the Centenary of the Declaration of the Bab in _Sh_iraz, which gathered momentum, as a result of the inauguration of the Two Year Plan which followed the Centenary of the Bab's Martyrdom in Tabriz, which received a tremendous impetus, in consequence of the launching of the Ten Year Crusade, commemorating the centenary celebrations of the birth of Baha'u'llah's Mission in ?ihran--such a process must, as the centenary celebrations designed to commemorate the Declaration of that same Mission in Ba_gh_dad approaches, be so markedly accelerated, and yield such a harvest, as will astonish the entire Baha'i world, and give the signal for the inauguration, by those who have so spontaneously set this process in motion, more than a decade ago, of a blissful era designed to carry the chief builders of Baha'u'llah's embryonic World Order, throughout the unnumbered, the diversified and widely scattered Dependencies of the British Crown, to still greater heights of achievements in the service and for the glory of His Faith.
May they, as they forge ahead along the high road leading to ultimate, total and complete victory, receive as their daily sustenance, a still fuller measure of the abounding grace, promised to the believers of an earlier generation by the Centre of the Covenant, the Author of the Divine Plan, Himself, on the occasion of His twice-repeated visit to their shores, and which has been unfailingly vouchsafed to themselves, in the course of over three decades, since the birth of the Formative Age of the Faith and the rise of its Administrative Order in their homeland.
Shoghi
Letter of 7 September 1957
7 September 1957
Dear Baha'i Brother,
On behalf of our beloved Guardian I acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your letter of 17th August enclosing the minutes of the meeting of the British N.S.A. held at the Summer School on August 8th....
Letter of 14 September 1957
14 September 1957
WELCOME DETERMINATION ASSEMBLED FRIENDS SUMMER SCHOOL PRAYING FERVENTLY FRIENDS ATTAIN GOALS SCALE NOBLER HEIGHTS PATH SERVICE CAUSE BAHA'U'LLAH.
SHOGHI
Letter of 2 October 1957
2 October 1957
Dear John:
In "The Voice of Youth" for July, page ten, there is an article by David Solomon in which he quotes some very significant passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Guardian would like to have the exact source of these passages, and the quotations in the paragraphs in which they occur, written out in full....
Letter of 11 October 1957
11 October 1957(91)
CONFIDENT BRITISH COMMUNITY RICHLY DESERVES NEW HONOUR.
SHOGHI
THE GUARDIAN'S MESSAGES TO LOCAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES
The Assemblies are listed in alphabetical order but their letters are chronologically arranged.
Belfast Bristol Cardiff Dublin Eccles Edinburgh Glasgow Leeds Liverpool London Manchester Northampton Norwich Nottingham Oxford Portsmouth Reading
Letter of 23 April 1950
23 April 1950
To the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Belfast
Dear Baha'i Friends,
Your letter of April 12th, conveying such heartening news, was received by our beloved Guardian, and he has instructed me to answer you on his behalf.
He feels your Assembly, a hard-won prize, and occupying an important position as representative of the Faith in Northern Ireland, is one of the key assemblies in the British Isles, and he is immensely proud of your achievement in at last forming it.
You may be sure he will pray for your protection and success in the Holy Shrines, and that your numbers may increase in Belfast and your ship weather every storm triumphantly!
With loving greetings,
[From the Guardian:]
May the Almighty bless sustain and guide you in your meritorious activities, remove every obstacle from your path and enable you to win still greater victories in the service of His glorious Faith.
Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi
Letter of 14 November 1947
14 November 1947
The Baha'is of Bristol, England
Dear Baha'i Friends,
Your message of Oct. 21st reached our beloved Guardian, and he has instructed me to answer it on his behalf.
Now that you are six there (judging by your signatures), a mere three is required to enable you to reach your Goal and have your Assembly next April.
You may be sure that he will supplicate in the Holy Shrines that these three may be speedily found and the Assembly safely established in accordance with the present Plan.
He assures you that your devotion and services are very deeply appreciated.
With loving greetings,
[From the Guardian:]
May the Almighty bless your high endeavours, reward you abundantly for your historic accomplishments, guide your steps, and aid you to extend continually the range of your highly valued activities.
Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi
Letter of 22 September 1948
22 September 1948
The Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Bristol
Dear Baha'i Friends,
Your letter of April 21st reached our beloved Guardian after a long delay, and he has instructed me to answer it on his behalf.
The formation of your Assembly, in the face of so many difficulties, was indeed a noble achievement, and serves to prove that our struggles as individuals, often handicapped by the sense of our own inadequacy, are reinforced by the grace of Baha'u'llah, Who enables us to achieve the seemingly impossible!
He urges you all to persevere in maintaining your Assembly, which forms one of the vital links in the Baha'i chain, which will soon gird the British Isles, never to lose heart, and to redouble your teaching labours so as to ensure a broader foundation next year for your Assembly's election and thus guarantee its permanency.
His prayers will be offered for you, one and all, for your success and guidance.
With Baha'i Love,
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers,
I was so pleased and grateful to receive your message, and I wish to assure you all of my loving and fervent prayers for the progress of your historic work, the extension of your activities and the realisation of every hope you cherish for the promotion of our beloved Faith. May the Almighty watch over you, sustain you in your valued endeavours, and aid you to render memorable services to His Faith and its institutions.
Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi
Letter of 1 November 1947
1 November 1947
The Baha'is of Cardiff
Dear Baha'i Friends,
Your welcome letter to our beloved Guardian dated Oct. 16th, has been received, and he has instructed me to answer it on his behalf.
He is well aware of the very real sacrifices you have made, and are making to establish the Cause in Wales, and he wants you to know he admires your courage and determination, and most deeply values the dedicated spirit which animates you.
The news of your first public meeting was good news indeed, and he feels sure your perseverance and the strong backing which you are receiving from the N.S.A. and the Teaching Committee, will crown your efforts with the success you so richly deserve.
His loving prayers will be offered for the speedy realisation of your hopes, and he urges you to persevere, conscious of the historical importance of what you are doing, and of how important your work is to the progress of the Plan in the British Isles.
With warmest greetings to you all, Yours in His service,
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers,
I wish to add a few words in person and assure every one of you of my deep admiration of the spirit you manifest, the services you render, and the determination with which you are initiating the great historic teaching enterprise in Wales.
You are, I assure you, often in my thoughts and prayers, and I will supplicate the Beloved to bless continually your high and meritorious endeavours.
Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi
Letter of 17 October 1948
17 October 1948
The Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Cardiff, Wales
Dear Baha'i Friends,
Your letter to our beloved Guardian of April 21st was received, after a long delay, and he was most happy to hear of the formation of your Assembly.
With an Assembly in Cardiff, in Edinburgh, and Dublin, the representative character of the Faith in the British Isles is fully established and the National body greatly re-inforced.